<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Hospitality by lyricwritesprose</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22622575">Hospitality</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose'>lyricwritesprose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Damaged [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anathema and Newt are broken up at the beginning of this, Anathema has problems too, Angst, Eldritch Abomination Angels, Flashbacks to Violence, Gen, In the sense that pretty much everybody IS damaged, It looks sort of like they might get back together but no promises, Still some humor though, The story stands alone but sort of relates back to "Damaged", Traumatized Aziraphale (Good Omens), more angsty than my usual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:39:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22622575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anathema Device is trying to pull her life together and it isn't entirely working.  She probably shouldn't have come to Tracy's get-together.  She <i>definitely</i> shouldn't have tried to find out more about the peculiar book thieves—or, at least, she should have chosen a different way to do it.</p><p>It is not necessary to read "Damaged" to understand this story, but they are thematically related, with the emphasis being on how the various characters are messed up by their background.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Damaged [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627570</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>281</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hospitality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Anathema had never been more uncomfortable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn't Madame Tracy's fault.  She was a good hostess, despite her deranged affection for a former witchfinder and all around disaster human.  But—the company. Tracy had invited both Newt and Anathema just before they had broken up, so both of them had come, and Anathema wasn't sure how she felt about seeing Newt again, and she kept shooting glances at Newt to try to figure out what he thought, and it wasn't working.  Shadwell had excused himself to do some urgent work in the garden, which probably wasn’t urgent, because Anathema saw the unsettled look he gave the </span>
  <em>
    <span>other</span>
  </em>
  <span> guests—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other guests.  The book thieves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema remembered the stiff, </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span> smile that Mr. Aziraphale had given her when he dropped her off after they crashed into her with the car.  He had done something very like it when Tracy introduced them today, and it gave her much the same unsettled feeling.  In comparison, the other book thief was almost reassuring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except that he had been wearing those sunglasses in the middle of the night, too.  How he expected to drive wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night . . . it made Anathema think he was hiding something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Tracy was there, and she was dedicated to keeping the conversation going, whatever random topic it wandered to.  Somehow, the conversation had moved to Sherlock Holmes. “Funny story about that,” Mr. Aziraphale said, sounding a bit more natural.  He still sat like his spine was a poker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Funny story?” Tracy said invitingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, as I’m sure you know, Conan Doyle, the man who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, was—less than fond of them.  And, er, at that time there was a member of the London literary scene—had a friend, very keen on the stories, and introduced the friend to Conan Doyle.  And Conan Doyle behaved </span>
  <em>
    <span>horribly.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  Insulted the friend’s taste in literature, insulted his intelligence.  Simply unbecoming behavior.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tracy was giving him a funny look.  “What happened then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The member of the literary scene,” Mr. Aziraphale said, “went out of his way to make Sherlock Holmes </span>
  <em>
    <span>staggeringly</span>
  </em>
  <span> popular.  So popular that the public stymied Conan Doyle's attempt to kill off the character and his entire life became eclipsed by Sherlock Holmes.  After all, it’s not petty vengeance if you’re increasing a person’s good fortune.” The last sentence was accompanied by an expression that somehow managed to combine saintly charity towards all living things and pure smug bitchiness.  Mr. Crowley was giving him an amused look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hell of a plot,” Anathema said, wondering exactly how it would work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I wouldn’t use those exact words.”  He sounded very prim. “Speaking of books, Miss Device, if you ever wish to sell </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter,</span>
  </em>
  <span> I would be delighted to buy it, and money is no object.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll think about it,” Anathema said.  That book was her life. Had been her life.  But it had also </span>
  <em>
    <span>damaged</span>
  </em>
  <span> her life, hadn’t it?  All those nightmares about not being able to find it, and her crisis when they came true.  Her first breakup with Newt, when she had accused him of tricking her into burning the second prophecies.  Her second breakup with Newt, when she had admitted that she would have slept with anyone Agnes told her to, and he had a crisis about whether he took advantage.  She didn’t know what to do without Agnes. She didn’t know who she was. Would clinging to the book help with that, or would it just be a bitterly persistent reminder of the certainty she’d lost?  “The prophecies are done now. The book can’t tell you anything more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, yes,” Mr. Aziraphale said, “but prophecies are a specialty, you know.  And analyzing the book in depth would be invaluable in terms of understanding prophecy in general.  There has never been, and may never again be, a prophet as coherent as Agnes Nutter. Not even St. John of Patmos.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Comes of being blitzed to the eyebrows on mushrooms,” Mr. Crowley said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There is that,” Mr. Aziraphale admitted.  “I think, in the end, he was trying to find some solution to the more devastating side effects of prophecy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Side effects?” Newt said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Madness,” Mr. Aziraphale said, “mostly.  Most prophets suffer mental disturbances. And for all that Agnes seemed incisive and logical—if a bit irritated at me—she also exploded on purpose.  Sane people—well, sane people </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t do that.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“She saw it,” Anathema said.  “If she didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> it, it might have thrown the prophecies off, and who knew what would happen then?”  Beside her, Newt shifted uncomfortably. He knew her views on the subject—</span>
  <em>
    <span>if Agnes had asked me to die, I would have done my best—</span>
  </em>
  <span>and he didn’t like them at all.  “What do you mean, irritated at you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When she told me to read,” Mr. Aziraphale said, “she called me foolish.  And several times thereafter. Either she was annoyed that it took me all night to work through things that were perfectly obvious to </span>
  <em>
    <span>her,</span>
  </em>
  <span> or she was annoyed at her book being out of your hands, or both.  I’m inclined to think both.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foolish.  The most prominent place where that word occurred was </span>
  <em>
    <span>open thine eyes and read, foolish principality,</span>
  </em>
  <span> which wasn’t one that the family had ever successfully analyzed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>for</span>
  </em>
  <span> them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>for</span>
  </em>
  <span> someone who could make sense of Agnes’s prophecies in a single night.  Four hundred years they had pored over it, and he just came and </span>
  <em>
    <span>worked it out.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you quite all right?” Mr. Aziraphale asked, leaning forward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” Anathema said, sounding funny to herself.  “I’ve—I’ve come to terms with the fact that I was mostly a delivery system.  Deliver Newt to the computers, deliver the book to you—and if she didn’t trust me enough to tell me that I was going to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>hit by a car,</span>
  </em>
  <span> to get the book to you, then maybe that was because I wasn’t trustworthy.  She would know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema wanted nothing more than to smash some crockery.  She settled for blinking hard so that the prickling in her eyes didn’t turn into anything more embarrassing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Agnes trusted you absolutely,” Mr. Aziraphale objected.  “I doubt she actually knew how the book arrived in my possession.  She couldn’t see everything, after all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, she could!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She couldn’t.  No prophet can.”  He sounded absolutely certain.  “She couldn’t read thoughts or even emotions.  Frequently, she was just observing events—which admittedly may make some of them ouroboros instances, coming into existence from being observed.  And I think she had major gaps in both her visions and her understanding. If she hadn’t, she would have told both of us that Adam was on the side of Earth.  And I wouldn’t have—” He stopped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Newt was frowning fiercely.  “You didn’t just deliver me to the computers,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>over</span>
  </em>
  <span> it, Newt.”  If that came out more snappish than it should have, well, they had broken up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was funny how different it felt, when they weren’t together.  At the airfield, Anathema remembered—thought she remembered—feeling a sort of a proprietary pride over Newt and his accomplishment.  Now, she was just keenly aware that it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>hers,</span>
  </em>
  <span> any more than he was.  And it was the height of selfishness to regret any part of how the world was saved, just because you were ultimately about as important as that stupid car Dick Turpin, but—but.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, but—I remember—I think I remember—”  Newt frowned even more fiercely. “I didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> of it.  I could have stood there feeling helpless until everything went up in smoke, because I usually </span>
  <em>
    <span>am</span>
  </em>
  <span> helpless.  You’re the first person to take a look at my weirdness and see something that was useful.  Even if it was only useful once.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you talking about?” Madame Tracy asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The computers at the air base were going to trigger a nuclear apocalypse,” Anathema explained.  “I think—there were strange people—I don’t remember exactly how they got that way. But Newt destroys computers.  Just by touching them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Crowley stopped lounging abruptly and leaned forward.  “You’re a techbane?”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“May . . . be?” Newt hazarded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ever robbed a museum?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“What?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“The more sophisticated the security system, the more easily you can make it go up in smoke,” Mr. Crowley said reasonably.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I—maybe—but—I wouldn’t!  Why would I want to rob a museum?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, come on.”  Mr. Crowley made a funny swaying motion with his head.  “Why do people watch </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mission Impossible?</span>
  </em>
  <span>  For the joy of seeing supremely competent people at work.  Skills coming together like perfect clockwork, not a motion out of place.  Don’t you want to </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span> one of those supremely competent people?”  He tilted his head, regarding Newt carefully.  “Because you could be. You absolutely could be.  I’ll show you, if you like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will thwart you, you know,” Mr. Aziraphale said, sounding amused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, that’s enough.”  There was steel in Tracy’s voice that Anathema hadn’t heard before.  “I know you two think of all this as a game, but Newt’s a nice boy and I don’t want to see him hurt.  Or arrested.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Aziraphale was protesting that Newt would be absolutely safe, that there were Rules, Tracy could come too if she liked, and Tracy said something about not wanting anything to do with Crowley’s army of rats, which Anathema didn’t process because she was too busy thinking hard.  She could easily believe that Mr. Crowley was a criminal, that he robbed museums regularly, but there was more to it than that. Like Tracy had said, it was a game.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What sort of people played games like that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And what about the other things?  Mr. Aziraphale’s stiff, unnatural smile?  Knowing, absolutely knowing, that she was badly hurt and in trouble, and then hearing Mr. Aziraphale say </span>
  <em>
    <span>no bones broken</span>
  </em>
  <span> and—then she wasn’t?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema narrowed her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She needed more information.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was a witch of information.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Other people talked about opening one’s third eye, and that was very much what it felt like—like opening up a sense that most people didn’t know about.  It made Anathema’s peripheral vision swimmy. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>usually,</span>
  </em>
  <span> it gave her extensive information on who a person was.  Not just moods and personality, but things like </span>
  <em>
    <span>are they lying</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>are they trying to hurt someone.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, it didn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema bolted out of her seat.  Threw herself in front of Newt, flinging out her arms.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>“You leave him alone!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Eyes and radiance on the one side, snakes and fire on the other.  Neither of them the slightest bit human. Both of them absolutely, </span>
  <em>
    <span>deadly</span>
  </em>
  <span> dangerous.  Anathema closed her eyes, groping desperately for something to counter them, trying to use her second sight without looking at them.  If she had time to write, if she could form symbols, but she couldn’t, she was unprepared, and unprepared was death—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wait.  No. Something there.  A half-completed ritual, benevolent and glowing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema grabbed it and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pulled.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She heard exclamations all around her.  Two from the entities. One from Tracy, and one from Newt, who was desperately trying to figure out what was going on.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>“You can’t have him!”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Anathema yelled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> him, for pity’s sake,” the Mr. Crowley thing’s voice snapped, far too close to her.  “Not like that, anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like,” Newt said, “like, like what, exactly?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your soul,” Mr. Crowley said.  “I don’t want your soul. Book girl, </span>
  <em>
    <span>put it back.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  You’re upsetting Aziraphale.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr. A,” Tracy said urgently, across the room.  “Mr. A, are you all right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hospitality,” the Mr. Aziraphale thing said breathlessly.  Aziraphale, Anathema should have </span>
  <em>
    <span>known</span>
  </em>
  <span> that wasn’t a human name, she should have known so many things, should have thought to take a look at them both when she first met them—</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Put it back!”</span>
  </em>
  <span>  It was a snarl, and Anathema flinched from it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Newt pushed his way between Anathema and Mr. Crowley, and then stopped, evidently uncertain what to do next.  But Mr. Crowley wasn’t attacking either. Just glaring, so hard that the sunglasses were almost irrelevant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She glanced over to Mr. Aziraphale and found him pale, staring wide-eyed into the air.  Stiffer than a human body could be. It looked for all the world as if he were </span>
  <em>
    <span>panicking, </span>
  </em>
  <span>except that he wasn’t breathing hard—wasn’t breathing at all.  His hands closed on the arms of the armchair, and underneath there was a crack of splintering wood.  His teacup was on the ground in front of him, shattered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why panicking?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What magic had she used, anyway?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>please</span>
  </em>
  <span> tell me what’s going on?” Tracy said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema pointed to the two not-men.  “They’re not human,” she said shakily.  “Best guess—demons. Actual demons of Hell.  I tried to—tried to use the half-finished ritual you had to keep them off us, only—”  Only what? What had it done?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Crowley crossed the room and grabbed Mr. Aziraphale’s hands.  Mr. Aziraphale snatched them away with an inhuman sound, something that might have been a noise of pain.  Mr. Crowley jerked as if he’d just been stabbed. “Aziraphale. Listen to me. Take deep breaths.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know perfectly well</span>
  </em>
  <span> they’re not human,” Tracy said.  “Mr. A. isn’t a demon, he’s exactly the opposite, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> half-finished ritual?  What did you do to him? Fix it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema closed her eyes, and then opened them again, bewildered.  “It shouldn’t be doing this.” She steeled herself, and then </span>
  <em>
    <span>looked</span>
  </em>
  <span> at Mr. Aziraphale.  Tried to. It took her three tries before she could get her third eye to open and look directly at them.  It, evidently, had ideas about how to keep her safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It snapped shut almost instantly.  Both of them twisted off in directions that </span>
  <em>
    <span>oughtn’t happen,</span>
  </em>
  <span> a constant confusion of elements that </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost</span>
  </em>
  <span> made sense, like feathers or eyes, but arranged in a way that would suck you down if you looked at it too long.  But Anathema had seen what she needed to see. “It isn’t doing this. It isn’t hurting them. They’re not pushing against it, so it’s just—sitting there.”  What </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> it, anyway?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Very old and very simple, whatever it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look at me.  Aziraphale. Look at me.”  Mr. Crowley had taken off his glasses and was kneeling in front of Aziraphale.  His voice was low and coaxing. “I’ll be your anchor. All right? Whatever is happening, whatever is going on in your head, you know it can’t be that bad because </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m still here.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  Remember the Bastille?  Nod if you can remember the Bastille.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a long, long pause, Mr. Aziraphale nodded.  Stiff and jerky. Wrong-looking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you undo it?” Tracy said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re—”  Exactly the opposite of a demon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  That was even worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think that would be remotely safe,” Anathema said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t let you get hurt then,” Mr. Crowley went on, his voice soothing.  “I won’t let you get hurt now. You remember the church? Nineteen forty-one?  Nod if you can remember the church.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Aziraphale nodded, a little more quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I must have looked a right tit, hopping about like that.  But I was there. Just like I’m here now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tracy looked stern.  “Anathema. We’re not talking about monsters.  We’re talking about </span>
  <em>
    <span>my friends.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  Whatever you’ve done to them—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dashing,” Mr. Aziraphale whispered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Crowley leaned forward.  “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thought you looked dashing.  Hopping or not. I liked the hat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tracy turned away from Anathema, towards Mr. Aziraphale.  “Are you back, then? You look like you’ve had a fright, I’ll get you—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will </span>
  <em>
    <span>not,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Mr. Crowley said.  He got to his feet, put on his sunglasses, and turned around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s all right,” Mr. Aziraphale said.  And then, with a little bit more strength, “It’s all right.  Just—no more tea for right now, please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Newt raised his hand hesitantly.  “I still don’t understand what’s going on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” Mr. Aziraphale said.  “As Miss Device said, neither of us are—well, human.  I’m an angel, a Principality in point of fact, and Crowley, Crowley is a demon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>have to explain it to them,” Mr. Crowley said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I find it a bit steadying, actually.  Explaining.” Mr. Aziraphale still looked very white, but he wasn’t splintering the arms of the armchair anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In fact, they were intact again.  Which fit with Anathema’s limited information on angels and demons.  Reality warpers. Limits unknown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Agnes Nutter had decided to call this one a fool, repeatedly.  But then, Agnes Nutter had known she would be safely dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Miss Device,” Mr. Aziraphale went on, “unwisely decided to use second sight on us, for whatever reason—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to know how dangerous he was,” Anathema said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.  Because of the, the casual criminality.  Pray don’t take it seriously; he certainly doesn’t.  So at any rate, Miss Device used second sight on us, and panicked herself rather, both because of our markedly unhuman aspects and, no doubt, alarming information from her occult studies.  So she, showing impressive presence of mind, elected to bind us to Hospitality.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Newt and Tracy said, “I don’t understand,” at approximately the same moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Angels and demons are powerful reality warpers,” Anathema said.  Her voice only shook a little bit. “Mostly, humans don’t stand a chance against them.  But they </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> susceptible to magic.  Symbols, spells, rituals.  You can’t trap a human in a circle of chalk, however powerful the symbols you use, because human beings just don’t respond to symbols that way.  A demon, though . . .” The demon didn’t look at all happy to be reminded of the fact. “At any rate, when I looked around with second sight, I saw a half-completed ritual in this house, so . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> no ritual,” Tracy protested.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There was,” Mr. Aziraphale said.  “Or rather, there was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>tradition,</span>
  </em>
  <span> which sometimes comes to almost the same thing.  Humans have been welcoming each other—and us—into their homes since the very beginning.  They developed rituals to keep violence at bay. It was commonly understood that once you shared sustenance—usually bread or salt, sometimes salted bread—that the participants couldn’t harm each other during their stay in that place.  Although there was still room for mischief.” He smiled shakily. “For instance, it doesn’t actually do the inhabitants any </span>
  <em>
    <span>harm</span>
  </em>
  <span> for a demon to persuade all the eligible young individuals to try to seduce me—which I did </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> appreciate, my dear—and if it ends in a hair-pulling fight, well, that’s down to the free will of the house’s inhabitants.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If there was such a thing as anti-repentance, that was the expression on Mr. Crowley’s face.  “You deserved it,” he said. “Undoing all my </span>
  <em>
    <span>magnificent </span>
  </em>
  <span>trouble, making a point of breaking bread with me so I would have to break it with the host as well.  If </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’re</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to go around being clever, the least I could do was make your life interesting in revenge.  Remember, this was long before the Arrangement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But we didn’t have salted bread,” Tracy objected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Apparently,” Mr. Aziraphale said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“tea</span>
  </em>
  <span> has enough of a long and ritually significant history to work similarly to salt if the tradition is invoked emphatically enough.  It’s probably down to China.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All Hospitality should do,” Anathema said slowly, “is prevent you from doing us harm while you and we are both on Tracy’s land.  It shouldn’t have caused—” A panic attack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had it been a panic attack?  Could angels have panic attacks?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Aziraphale looked away.  “That’s the problem, though,” he said.  “Rituals can bind </span>
  <em>
    <span>us.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  Humans can do as they will.  The last time I felt Hospitality used deliberately </span>
  <em>
    <span>as a spell,</span>
  </em>
  <span> it was being used to bind me so I couldn’t do harm against my host.  And my host—well—parts of an angel’s body are very valuable as sorcerous materials, seeing as we’re made of celestial matter, although they wouldn’t last long after an angel is discorporated—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They tried to </span>
  <em>
    <span>cut you up?”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Newt said, horrified.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Aziraphale didn’t look at any of them, instead inspecting his hands, watching the tremors in them dispassionately.  “I wasn’t alone.” Much quieter, “I wish I had been.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Crowley asked sharply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, if I </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> been alone, it would have just been a very painful death, and I might have been able to make my case to Heaven that they didn’t deserve—that.  But—San—Sandalphon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“That’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> what happened to Gomorrah,” Mr. Crowley said, very quietly.  “I knew about Sodom. Think everyone knows about Sodom. Lot shielding the two of you from the rape gangs and getting out of there, minus a wife.  But all I ever heard about Gomorrah was, </span>
  <em>
    <span>just like Sodom, crimes against hospitality.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Aziraphale nodded.  “It was my fault.” A whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Crowley lunged forward, putting his hands on the arms of the chair, leaning into Mr. Aziraphale’s space.  “Stop that. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop that.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  You don’t think just a </span>
  <em>
    <span>little</span>
  </em>
  <span> of the blame lies with the cherub who destroys whole cities because—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I was in trouble.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because he values one angel’s physical body over thousands of human </span>
  <em>
    <span>lives,</span>
  </em>
  <span> that doesn’t reflect on you.  Doesn’t even mean he cares about you.  More that he thinks any offense against any angel demands blood.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know perfectly well that he doesn’t care about me,” Mr. Aziraphale said.  “He was very put out over the inconvenience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema noticed Newt looking bewildered.  “A cherub,” she said very quietly, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> a baby angel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Crowley heard them anyway.  “A cherub is a self-willed Enola Gay with, in this case, the anger management skills of a Glaswegian badger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He was doing what he thought his duty was,” Mr. Aziraphale said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like ‘only following orders,’” Mr. Crowley agreed, “except he had the leeway to make up orders that would let him do the most damage.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>Never</span>
  </em>
  <span> excuse Sandalphon to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tracy intervened before Mr. Aziraphale could open his mouth again.  “The point is,” she said, “if that spell was tied into such a horrible experience, we have to get rid of it.”  She looked at Anathema. “You have to get rid of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room was too close and Anathema felt her breath come too fast.  There was a reason witches were warned against ever summoning a demon.  It wasn’t because it was especially difficult, although it was precise work.  It was that once you had a demon—assuming you didn’t manage to do something very slightly wrong, and get yourself slaughtered—sooner or later, you would have to let the demon </span>
  <em>
    <span>go.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  Which made tigers and the dismounting from them seem positively cozy by comparison.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The things they could do to her.  She didn’t have to have eyes if Mr. Crowley didn’t want her to.  She didn’t have to have hands. It would be entirely reasonable to eliminate both, keep her from writing any symbols on the floor.  And then there was Newt, whom she had drawn attention to by trying to shield. If they </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> Newt, it might be even worse than what they would do to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want—”  She swallowed.  “I want assurance.  An oath—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like Heaven am I going to make a pact not to hurt you,” Mr. Crowley said promptly.  “For one thing, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> aren’t bound by oaths and I want to be able to defend myself.  For another thing, hurting you—isn’t as straightforward as all that.  I’ve picked up a lot over the years, but I’m not the healer that Aziraphale is.  If I’d been the one to put you back together after you crashed into my car, believe me, it would have </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why—” Anathema said, and stopped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not sure.  For the most part, demons and angels have the same basic abilities, but there are individual differences even between one angel and the next.  Could be because he’s got thousands of years more practice than I do. Sneaking miracles like that past Hell always took a bit of doing, and there were times when it took very clever talking to avoid being flayed.  What does it matter? Just </span>
  <em>
    <span>cancel the hospitality,</span>
  </em>
  <span> book girl.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That hadn’t been what Anathema was going to ask.  What she had been thinking was, </span>
  <em>
    <span>why would you put me back together?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If he was telling the truth, he had done it before.  At significant personal risk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had no way to know if he was telling the truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had been thinking of them as expressions of the will of Heaven and Hell, a sort of limb extended into this dimension.  That was the way a lot of her books treated them. But that couldn’t be the case, because if it was, they would have torn each other apart.  They wouldn’t have panic attacks, or try to ground each other during panic attacks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tracy had said </span>
  <em>
    <span>these are my friends.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Were individuals with devastating power more or less terrifying than extensions of Heavenly or Hellish will?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The easiest way,” Anathema said, and swallowed, “the easiest way to break the hospitality is for me to just leave.  It should work like breaking a circle in a ritual casting. The effects sort of—collapse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned towards the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll come back, though,” Tracy said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t—”  </span>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t know if I can face anyone in this room.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  The two entities because they were two entities, Tracy because she accepted their personhood so much more readily, Newt because—Newt.  “I’ll—just give me a minute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema fled.  Out the door, to the edge of the yard, and onto the sidewalk.  That should be the boundary, there. Hospitality predated modern property laws, but the effect should be limited to the lands that the host claimed, tilled, and seeded.  Lawn maintenance might or might not qualify. Concrete definitely didn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shadwell was looking at her, with a sort of trepidatious concern, over the hedge.  “Party’s over, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I just—made a mistake.”  Anathema didn’t want to talk to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.”  The man was silent for a moment, considering his hedge trimmers.  Then he said, “He’s a good young lad, Newt is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know he is,” Anathema said.  “It’s complicated.” And not at all the problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it was part of the problem.  Instinctively moving to shield Newt.  There were a number of things that said </span>
  <em>
    <span>nowhere near over him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not many youngsters stop and </span>
  <em>
    <span>listen</span>
  </em>
  <span> to an old man.  I stood on street corners for years, shouting till my throat was sore, and he was the only one who ever listened.  Not sure he ever believed me, mind, but he was there. And he’s got the proper two nipples, ye ken.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laughing hysterically in Shadwell’s face, Anathema judged, would not improve matters.  Horrible old man or not, it seemed he sincerely cared about Newt. And was giving Newt the most glowing recommendations he could think of.  Caring enough to listen, and—the other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It occurred to Anathema that Shadwell might have a genuine mental illness.  Which didn’t change the fact that he was a horrible old man, but it made her feel a trifle more sympathetic to him, and it might explain the nipple thing.<a id="return1" name="return1"></a><a href="#note1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t think you’d be the type to encourage someone to take up with a bisexual Hispanic witch,” Anathema said, just to see what he would say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shadwell scratched the back of his head with the hand that was holding the hedge trimmers, narrowly avoiding stabbing himself in the neck.  “Well . . . the thing is . . . the thing is . . .” She saw him get almost all the way to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Newt loves you</span>
  </em>
  <span> and back away again, unable to voice it.  “The way I see it,” Shadwell managed finally, “if you and Newt were to take up together, he could counter your perfidious wiles.  And you could look after each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not about Newt,” she said as gently as possible.  “It’s about me.” And the prophecies. If it weren’t for the prophecies—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, if it weren’t for the prophecies, Anathema wouldn’t have met Newt at all, and she would have been someone entirely different.  Witchcraft and prophecies, the backbone of her mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was she going to go back inside?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wished deeply for a prophecy.  Just one. If she had a prophecy, she could walk calmly to her own death, if that was what was going to happen.  If she had a prophecy, she would know what to do about Newt. How much of her reaction to Mr. Aziraphale and Mr. Crowley was because of her perfectly reasonable fear of supernatural beings, and how much was because she didn’t know how to be brave without her book?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema squared her shoulders and turned back towards the house.  “All right,” she said quietly. “All right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the spirit, lass,” Shadwell said, utterly misunderstanding what she needed encouragement for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema strode up the walk, and onto the porch, and let herself back in the door.  “Did it work?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gone like a soap bubble,” Mr. Aziraphale said.  He looked much better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anathema nodded nervously.  “Good.” Nobody was killing her.  That was good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not a lot of people could do that,” Mr. Crowley said, looking at her thoughtfully.  “Take an unintentional tradition from the dawn of time and make a workable binding out of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a good witch,” Anathema said.  “I had to be.” Not that it had helped her much, in the run-up to Armageddon.  Locating spells that she had spent years perfecting, all useless because Adam Young was untrackable and finding him hadn’t been Anathema’s job anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to rob a museum?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of all the humans I can think of,” Mr. Crowley said, “you’re the one who most needs to do something mad just because you want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why,” Mr. Aziraphale asked him, “are you focused on museums all of a sudden?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Museums contain stuff.  I happen to be a fan of stuff.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Aziraphale regarded him for a long moment.  “If you’re planning some sort of elaborate caper for my sake,” he said, “I assure you that I’m quite all right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your sake?” Newt said, confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, it’s a bit of a habit, you know.  Countering whatever mischief a demon gets up to.  And losing my place has been—I’ve been rather—I have rather welcomed it.  But I’m</span>
  <em>
    <span> all right.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  I don’t need it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Anathema said.  “No, I don’t want to rob a museum.”  Even if it served as some sort of—anchor?—for Mr. Aziraphale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mr. Crowley had helped ground him during the panic attack.  Mr. Crowley was planning some sort of caper—did people other than Mr. Aziraphale still use that word?—to fulfill some sort of obscure need of Mr. Aziraphale’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What did devotion look like in an immortal, inhuman being?  For that matter, what did devotion look like in anyone?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But,” she said, “Newt, if </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> decide to rob a museum, I’ll give you all the charms and protections I can, along with eight hundred reasons why doing it is a really bad idea.”  He probably thought she was exaggerating. She would, Anathema thought, write them all down and number them.<a id="return2" name="return2"></a><a href="#note2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></span>
  <span>  When Anathema Device promised someone eight hundred things, they would get exactly that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I—”  Newt looked torn.  “You don’t have to.  I mean, it’s not your job to protect me.  Jumping in front of me like you did today, you really, really don’t have to do that.  And besides, I’d have to be mad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yes, but Anathema was keenly aware that </span>
  <em>
    <span>never robbed a bank</span>
  </em>
  <span> had been somewhere near </span>
  <em>
    <span>never eaten Thai food</span>
  </em>
  <span> on Newt’s bucket list.  “I know I don’t have to,” Anathema said.  “Call it doing something mad just because I want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Newt said quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No more robbery talk,” Tracy decreed.  “Honestly, the lot of you have about a teaspoon of sense between yourselves.  What </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to know more about, is Sherlock Holmes.  Did you have anything to do with the telly versions?  Because if so, I’d like to thank you for Jeremy Brett.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the conversation moved peacefully along.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p><a id="note1" name="note1"></a><sup>[1]</sup>A psychologist might have diagnosed Mr. Shadwell with schizotypal personality disorder, based on such clinical indicators as “believing things that were obviously ridiculous” and “having the social skills of a concussed whelk.”  Mr. Shadwell would have diagnosed the psychologist with being an orf-raddled gowk, based on he didn’t like the looks of them.  Not that it made the slightest bit of difference.  With or without therapy, Shadwell was Shadwell.<sup> [ <a href="#return1">return to text</a> ]</sup></p><p><a id="note2" name="note2"></a><sup>[2]</sup>With Roman numerals.  Anathema had <i>standards.</i><sup> [ <a href="#return2">return to text</a> ]</sup></p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>